Zombie Angst

by Jim Couper

  “Except she probably isn’t dead,” Ramon continued, “She might be wandering around the woods with her head on backwards, her jaw snapping and hands like a basketball player. Her rotting flesh stinks like dog shit and she looks like something the cat vomited. It’s her fault I don’t have my T-shirt. I saw on TV what happened to those other poor trailer park stiffs. What a mess. I’m so lucky. And to answer that other question sir, yes, I saw a bright light. The sun touched the horizon.”

  “Bright lights are a common phenomenon of near death experiences,” Sinclair said as a nurse entered the room and announced it was time to go.

  “Someone’s been eating too much fruit cake and it isn’t Ramon,” Jesse mumbled on the way out.

  16

  The colonel from Ottawa offered Jane Dougherty not a word of thanks for her ceaseless work when he clacked into the station and told her he was taking charge. Four days of nothing but here and there naps had depleted her of the will to resist and the curiosity to see written orders. The 50-year-old colonel sported a black moustache that Hitler would have worn with pride and every item of clothing appeared to have come from the dry cleaners an hour earlier. A brass band and red carpet might well have preceded his military march into the police station, just a few minutes before midnight.

  Jesse, fresh from an afternoon siesta that stretched into evening, greeted the military man and told him that although he might now be in charge, he should be aware of an after dark curfew and anyone wandering around, including colonels, had a good chance of being jailed, shot or eaten alive. Jesse also pointed out that they were still the police force and if he didn’t get his car out of the no-stopping zone he would be ticketed and towed.

  The colonel shouted an order at a private who stood like an ornament in the doorway and did not react. “Did you hear me, Private Benson?”

  “I heard you sir, but was unable to comprehend.”

  “I said, ‘Tell saget iglinga ta conduct the Colonel’s offisha veecle to opsit sida road.”

  “Do you want me to wash your car sir?”

  “Doesn’t anyone in this man’s army speak English? Park…car…there.” The colonel shouted in staccato fashion while pointing to the other side of the street. “Tell Sergeant Iginla to wait there.”

  The commander turned, with a click of his heels, to face Dougherty and ignore Nesterinko. “I’m fully cognisant of the situation here. Tell me who is doing the murders and tell me your leads on where to find him.”

  “If it was that easy it would be done and you wouldn’t be here. My name is Jane Dougherty and that’s Jesse Nesterinko. You haven’t introduced yourself.”

  “Apologies. Colonel Mayhew-Shostakovich.”

  “Bless you,” said Jesse quietly.

  “I beg your pardon.”

  “I thought you sneezed.”

  “Are you attempting humor with my name?”

  “Excuse me,” Jane butted in. “Junior here has not learned when to rein in. May we just call you May?”

  “No, you may not.”

  Nesterinko butted in, “You may call me Jesse and she’s known as Dough although she doesn’t like it, so Jane would be better.”

  “I wasn’t addressing you, assistant Jesse. Step back.”

  Jess took a large step away from Jane.

  “Mayhew-Shostakovich combines …”

  “Gezuntheit,” Jesse exclaimed under his breath.

  “… Russian heritage with English reform. Do you have a problem with that, soldier?”

  “No problem colonel. Just sounds like a snotty sneeze.”

  “Now, if you fill me in with details Sergeant, I’ll listen.”

  Jane took a deep breath and started her recitation. It started with a senior woman being murdered and then a man walking in a cemetery being badly maimed although that attack may have come slightly before the murder of the woman. We’re looking at two different killers. Then slaughter at a mobile home park. Next some of my men went down. A car and a truck crashed, but no victims, no bodies. A policeman missing, people don’t show up for work and we can’t find them. Half the hookers here and across the lake in East Peachland have claimed to have been date raped. They are anaemic and amnesiastic. That’s a mouthful: weak and remembering nothing of the past few hours. A guy in hospital, possibly the first attacked, says a zombie ate his leg.”

  “Enough Sergeant Dougherty, I’ve studied the reports and you’ve added little new except about the prostitutes. Elaborate.”

  “About 18 hookers, strippers, addicts and such have woken up in the woods, at widely ranging spots. They don’t know how they got there. A few recall getting a phone call to meet a guy at Second Sip coffee shop and next thing they know they wake up in the woods. They have $100 or more in their purses they didn’t have before. The women suffer headaches, neck wounds, weakness and can barely walk and talk. They go to hospital and hospital calls us. Doctors says low blood, nothing more. We get similar complaints occasionally, but never that many in one night. If 18 hookers complain, that means just as many accept it as one of the risks of the job and blow it off.”

  “And how do you assess that situation sergeant?” The colonel barked the question and stared at Jane as if she should take the blame.

  “I don’t. It’s exactly what it is. Could be a motorcycle gang at work or …”

  Jesse interrupted, “It could be alien abductions.”

  “Don’t talk nonsense to me, boy,” the colonel quickly retorted. “Stick to the facts. In fact take another step back.” Nesterinko took a giant step back and added, “You probably won’t be able to hear me tell about the little people from back here.”

  “You’ve got midgets on your mind as well as aliens?”

  “I’ll tell you about it,” Jane interceded. “A special agent from CSIS showed me the dried out body of a gnome.”

  “What the bucking smell,” the colonel shot out and then quickly added, “Excuse my language.”

  “You didn’t actually say it,” Jesse quipped with a wry smile.

  “I thought it, that’s enough.”

  “Whatever,” Jesse whispered. “We gotta go. There’s a community needs saving and talking ain’t doing it.” He strode to his shared office in the back.

  “Tell me about the little person,” Colonel Mayhew-Shostakovich ordered and Jane explained about Agent Sinclair, his find and his theories.

  “Tell me about the alien theory,” he again ordered, and Jane tried to decipher Sinclair’s theory, but ended in a muddle of contradictions.

  “Tell me about the zombie theory,” he ordered and Jane’s reply came less quickly and less muddled. At the end she said, “You may be in charge of military operations Mr. Mayhew-Shostakovich, but to me you’re just another guy on the street so I’d appreciate if you didn’t order me.”

  “Oh spit, have I been doing that? Sorry about the language. OK, I can do better. Please tell me all you know about the man in the hospital.” Jane politely and patiently repeated what the hairdresser had told her.

  “I’ve no more questions,” the colonel stated abruptly. “If you’ll excuse me I have to engage the enemy. We’ll maintain the curfew. Anyone out after dark dies. I’ll have combat troops on every corner.”

  The Colonel yelled some unintelligible orders and proceeded towards the door. Before he opened it Jane shouted, “I don’t want you killing my people just because someone’s not too bright and goes for an evening walk. A warning or arrest would be better strategy.”

  The colonel turned, puffed out his chest and replied, “Your point is taken sergeant. Now I have to get the truth of this situation.”

  17

  Mort did his lurching in the darkest shadows beneath leafy branches that overhung Peachland’s avenues. His walking style bothered him. Why couldn’t he stand tall and walk like a regular guy? Why did he schlep along like he carried two bags of bowling balls? What was with the shuffle? Hiking boots covered his feet, not fluffy slippers with bunny ears, yet he scuttled along with th
e speed of a lame sloth. He needed to get in shape, workout, so he could lift his feet, swing his arms and walk like a man.

  Slowly he bent over and tumbled down onto a grassy lawn. His hands sensed none of the cool dew as he put them below his chest and pushed away from the ground. He lowered his upper body and then hoisted it again: he could do push-ups all day, albeit in slow motion. Strength was not the issue, nor was stamina. Mort tried jumping jacks, but his heavy feet wouldn’t leave the ground, despite the strength in his legs. Like firefighter’s hoses filled with water, his arms swung hopelessly about him, refusing to fly above his shoulders. He thought that joining a sports club might improve his speed, agility and co-ordination. As a child he had played ice hockey, but he doubted he could now skate if he couldn’t even walk properly. Goalie would be his position. He wouldn’t mind being hit in the face with a frozen puck.

  Vague recollections drifted into semi-consciousness as Mort thought about being on frozen water. He considered his demise. An auto accident had not been his undoing, he had not bled to death from an open wound and he had not had a heart attack. It had something to do with water. When his band of fellow zombies crossed beneath the bridge he had turned back. At that time a return to Peachland’s cemetery seemed proper procedure, but now he knew he feared water. As well as being uncoordinated he was a coward.

  He ruminated further as he plodded along in shadows created by a weak moon in a clouded sky. It pleased him immensely that that he had acquired some semblance of memory and now possessed an IQ higher than a domino tile. A boat floated into his mind. A small craft, a kayak: he loved to paddle. He had set out on a dead calm lake, but a wind came up, a squall, and gusts whipped mist from waves and blew it like a fog across the water. Slowly he paddled towards home, being cautious because pointed deadheads lurked just below the surface. A motor roared and he thought about a fool with more horsepower than brains blasting across the lake without seeing where he was going. The roar increased, something hit his craft and bits of his bow splintered across the water’s surface. Shards of Kevlar slowly sank but only the first 10 inches of his kayak had been shattered. Mort leaned back so water that entered his boat flowed to the stern and the remains of the stem rose out of the lake so he could continue paddling. Carefully stroking towards shore, his future looked promising and he took it as a good omen that a kokanee salmon jumped through the open bow and into his kayak. The two-pound fish, with beautiful iridescent red and green flanks, flipped about, slowly dying. Mort felt compassion and didn’t want to get in trouble for fishing without a license so he reached forward to throw it back into the lake. The bow dipped and gallons of water freed the fish and sank the boat.

  Mort initiated abandon ship procedures and reached for his life jacket as the slender, expensive craft sank into the cool liquid. He had tied his uninflated life jacket to the kayak so the wind wouldn’t blow it away and now it went down with the ship. A camera and binoculars hung from his neck, secured with a knot so he wouldn’t lose them. In his pockets he had coins, a multi-knife and rock specimens picked up near Rattlesnake Island. Hiking boots that carried him around rocky parkland clung to his feet like bricks and pulled him to a watery grave.

  Mort’s paddle and lunch pack washed up on shore three days later. Despite dragging the lake and sending down scuba divers, his body remained in its deep aquatic coffin. A weak current took it slightly south and when camera and binoculars fell from his drooping neck, and rocks slipped from rotted pockets, his body floated upwards and an east wind pushed it back to Peachland where it lodged, like a pile of rags, among rocks that no one clambered upon in October.

  With recollections of how it all ended, Mort’s sense that he differed from the other afterlife found confirmation. Never had he been displayed in a casket, never had he known a hospital and never had he clawed his way out of a grave. A cold, deep aquatic coffin had cradled his brain and allowed him to now think ponderously, if not profoundly or profusely.

  Now he understood why bits of pale, puffy skin kept falling from his arms. Little remained of the left ear he had inadvertently scratched. Mort was waterlogged and wished he could wring himself out.

  Were there others, he pondered? What about people who starved in the woods or died under an avalanche? A Craig’s List posting might help them get together and form a support group.

  Did you drown, starve or suffocate?

  Feel alienated, alone?

  Zombies Without Friends

  meets Tuesday, 6 p.m., at Second Sip

  Ask for Mort

  Plodding along suburban streets, with neither destination nor purpose, Mort got a feeling of eerie familiarity, almost remembering the déjà vu that floated beyond the tip of his tongue. A restored 60s Mustang he had seen before sat in a drive and the corner convenience store was surely one he had visited. If he walked through the door he could locate newspapers, milk, coffee and, yes, cigarettes. What a joy to stagger in, buy a pack of Marlboro, light up and savour the delicious smoke. But the clerk wouldn’t understand his slurred talk. They’d probably hand him briquettes.

  The store looked empty and dark when it should have throbbed with teens with nothing to do but loiter. Putting a rock through the window and helping himself seemed like the thing to do. Hair gel and a comb would be on his shopping list along with some skin care products. Deodorant was a definite need and maybe some insecticide to ward off the little worms that congregated in his groin and dropped at his ankles. Mort weighed the rock he picked up and then dropped it. The last thing he needed was a criminal record. Smokes could wait.

  Before him, like a church with an aura, stood a house he knew and loved. The bright blue trim he had painted himself, and the single-car garage with a slight lean could not be confused with any other. The frame bungalow now had a weedy lawn that needed cut and an old refrigerator decorated the porch. In the drive sat a white Dodge Caravan with no wheels … he used to drive it … to school. He taught at Glencairn Elementary: grades five and six, and he specialized in math. He knew algebra, geometry, trigonometry, calculus. The square of a right-angle rectum equals the radius of a pie chart. It was all coming clear. Schoolchildren loved him and after class he coached soccer and on weekends took them hiking. His wife came along too. She had a name… Mellon or Melanoma. And he had kids and knew their names: little Calculus who moved to music and might dance on a stage someday. And his son Abacus who dreamed of being a co-pilot.

  Perhaps he could get a peek, just one glimpse of his cherished family before lurching off to obscurity, to a destiny he couldn’t understand. Knowing he could never enter the sacred household, considering the way he was dressed − blood stains and all − Mort stepped towards the big front window. Tightly pulled living room drapes prevented seeing inside so he moved to the kitchen window and as he did so the door opened and little Abacus ran out. Behind him a lilting voice sang, “Get back inside you little bastard, it’s dangerous out there.”

  The lad took four or five steps then, upon seeing his father, stopped dead in his tracks. “It’s Daddy! Daddy’s home.” He shouted joyously while running to his father and hugging his leg.

  “Daddy smells like a big fart,” he yelled, then in a quieter voice, asked, “Where have you been? What did you bring me?” His son pulled the pant leg and its owner towards the door. Mort wanted to cry uncontrollably with joy at being reunited with his loved ones. He wanted to hoist Abacus in the air and hug him and never let him go and then a piece of his arm slid out from under his sleeve and fell atop a dandelion. The hug would wait.

  Abacus pulled him towards the door and Mort’s wife, an angel in white, lit from behind with a halo of luminescence, an apparition too beautiful to behold, stood motionless. She whispered, “Mort?” He nodded. She started forward and then grabbed the railing for support, “I gotta sit down.” She backed into the house.

  Mort followed and saw beautiful Calculus crawling across the living room’s deep shag carpet towards him. She crawled onto his foot and as he looked down at
his laughing daughter he saw dinner. He envisioned her soft, smooth, tasty insides. Then came shame for such thoughts. He wanted to slap himself on the head as punishment, but feared he would knock off his other ear.

  His wife’s name, something musical, Metallica, Meatloaf ... Melody. She had fainted into a plush chair then raised her head and stared at him, “Oh my God Mort. You don’t look so good. Were you lost in the woods? Have you been to hospital? Mort, you need a shower. I feel dizzy.”

  Melody started to get up from the chair, but was interrupted by the opening of the bedroom door from which a large man in a bath robe emerged. “Who the hell are you?” he demanded.

  Abacus gleefully intercepted and supplied introductions, “That’s my Daddy. Daddy, this is new Uncle Albert.”

  Although a thick purple substance drooled from his lips as he prepared to speak Mort said nothing; they wouldn't understand.

  “You’re dead goddamit. You look like shit and you stink. We got insurance comin’. Why don’t you get the hell back to where you come from? You look like them zomboids they bin talkin’ ‘bout? I gonna git me a reward.” With that he marched up to Mort and caught him unprepared with a roundhouse right that landed on his mouth and knocked off some lower lip. The bit of putrid flesh flew across the room, hit the window and dropped next to a cat that ran away.

  The blow didn’t hurt Mort. Pain had long departed his body and pleasure came only when eating. A second blow hit his stomach and Uncle Albert looked at his fist cloaked in grey mucus. Again Mort felt little, but had concerns about the fist damaging his ability to hold meat.

  Albert reared back for another punch, but Mort grabbed his arm and bit off the thumb. Albert squealed like a girly pig and turned to the fireplace with eyes on a brass poker. Mort jumped onto his back and tore into his neck. Before Albert could say “uncle” Mort had him on the floor, flipped him over and un-zipped his stomach. As the first organ, a pancreas, came out of its container and into Mort’s mouth Albert squirmed in pain, horror and disbelief. With formidable strength Mort pinned him, but Albert grabbed a decorative copper plate with Elvis engraved on it and shoved it protectively over his abdomen. Mort did not intend to eat copper so he pushed the plate up and over Albert’s face while continuing to dine. The poker beside the fireplace helped Mort spread open Uncle Albert’s big head for an irresistible dessert that he consumed before returning to finish the entree. He plucked out liver and kidney and realized he had bit off more than he could chew. With Mary, the cat and bits and pieces from others rolling around, his stomach had reached capacity. Would he ever have a bowel movement, he wondered?